"is eastern fandom really that good or do you just not know Japanese"
well that depends entirely on when YOU entered fandom. I entered fandom at least in June 2013, probably earlier, when we were still in the transitional period of early 2000s and early 2010s fandom. The cringe itself was its blood and cells. It was meant to be cringey.
I remember people WISHING they had the dedication of toxicity of EA fandoms. EA fandoms always had the reputation of "toxic" which actually lead to a lot of EA hate ("block Japanese fans on sight") but also west fandom always had a problem of disrespecting asian fandom.
(stealing fanart especially but this was a general fandom thing that I sadly can't shake, I keep just downloading fanart and if theres no watermark I'm just going to forget who owns it. And this was EVERYWHERE back then that is also why a lot of fanart is password protected)
However, If you were like me and saw the transition of early 2000s to late 2010s fandoms you can probably see the appeal of EA fandoms. You've dealt with the same amount of toxicity. "You're not a REAL fan if you don't know this." "You ship that, this is superior". But its not the SAME as the toxicity nowadays.
In the flipside if you started fandoms in 2018 to now, that toxicity might be new to you. The toxicity in fandoms comes from complainers of fandom as a whole not individual hate campaigns of early fandoms. ("This is bad so don't draw it" vs "you don't understand the character since you drew it") That toxicity would be new to you and you'd prefer the western toxicity of fandom.
Theres this theory that "Japanese internet is a least 5 years behind the west." Lately the most popular Japanese youtube videos are "pranks" and "sexual harassment prank" that were popular in the west in 2018.
Basically depending on when you got into fandom can take the same "toxicity" of EA fandoms. Theres toxicity in ALL fandoms, thats what fandoms are, they create drama easily. Its why when proship discourse got to Japan (from western fans) Japanese fanartists started to mass-block antis. Its the same idea of"Don't engage with those who have no braincells" ("don't feed the trolls", "Stupidity bites the rotten apple" all things I've seen back then). Its why people were surprised when EA fandoms harassed a Woithlette Zine for allowing a Nuiveworth artist in (I do not know if those are the ship names). The SAME CHARACTERS just SWITCHED Dynamics. Its amazing, its like toxic Sasunaru vs NaruSasu shippers who were yelling that their ship was better.
